This player previews Vincent Floyd – Hard To Love (RHM 020). A stunning Chicago deep house song by the dreamy, lovelorn Vincent Floyd, recorded in the early nineties. Previously unreleased, mastered from the original DAT tapes.

The legendary Prescription Records defined the 1990s deep house sound. Now captured in this monumental 6LP anthology boxset! Holds numerous classics that have been out of press for years + four previously unreleased tracks.

“Prescription: Word, Sound and Power” presents the groundbreaking Chicago based house label’s anthology, holding milestone songs + four previously unreleased tracks.
Chez Damier and Ron Trent started the label in 1993, released some two-dozen singles in a four-year span, many of which attained legendary status on the underground scene. “Chez Damier and I started the label, because we had the idea to take a certain level of fidelity and bring that fidelity to what people call tracks. Tracks being drum orientated Chicago rhythm tracks with a minimalistic melody. We were playing with that idea, expounding a point of
that minimalistic aspect and making it more complex”, Trent explains.

Ron Trent was born in Massachusetts but raised in Chicago, listening to jazz and learning percussion. He began DJing in 1982, playing at area high schools. His first EP, containing the epic instrumental“Altered States,” was released on Armando Gallop’s Warehouse Records in 1990. Chez Damier (Anthony Pearson) grew up in Chicago, where he danced at the Warehouse as a youth. He left for Detroit in the 1980s, helping to open the Music Institute and working A&R for Kevin Saunderson’s label, KMS. Damier and Trent met while Damier was visiting Chicago and immediately hit it off.

Today, Prescription is cited by countless producers as a major influence. “It’s a very dub experimental label… sound bites, samples, rhythms, and a lot of ethereal stuff, too,” Trent expounds—not to mention. Prescription’s embrace of heavy sub-bass. Concludes Trent, “It was ahead of its time, definitely.”

We recently released the second edition of Rush Hour’s House Of Music magazine. This edition also featured an interview with Chicago’s Vincent Floyd, that we partly shared on this website before, around Vincent Floyd’s first Rush Hour 12″ , the repress Your Eyes/I’m So Deep. To warm up for Floyd’s second release on the label, his EP called Moonlight Fantasy, we like to share the entire HOM article. Moonlight Fantasy will be out very very soon, and consists of unreleased material…

//

Last winter Antal met Vincent Floyd during his stay in Chicago to ask him if he had any more tunes lying around, since his quality output didn’t come in big quantities. It turned out that Floyd had enough tracks, and he selected some of the finest tracks to compile an EP. Of course, Antal was intrigued to find out more about the man behind the music, so he asked him some questions…

Can you tell me how you got into music?I have always loved all genres of music, and was fascinated by the guitar when I heard Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, and Prince. I got a guitar for Christmas when I was 11 years old, and I started taking lessons and writing songs. My uncles played the guitar and the piano, and my older brother, Lee, played the saxophone. I was always surrounded by musical people and listened to a lot of music on the radio.

How did your first house productions happen?My best friend Armando Gallop was a DJ, promoter and house producer. When we were in high school, he bought a Roland TB-303 groove machine and a TR-707 drum machine. We programmed a lot of tracks in his basement. I later purchased Roland and Yamaha drum machines and keyboards, and started recording songs.

When did you think of putting out your first 12 inch record?I had been recording r&b songs as well as dance music. Armando had released Land of Confusion and introduced me to Ray Barney at Dance Mania. I let him hear the house tracks that I recorded and he released my first record.

Why did you basically limit your output to only five releases and a few side projects?Although I have recorded hundreds of tracks, my output has been limited because I released music during a time in my life when I had less responsibilities and commitments. Since the release of my music, I became a single parent and spent the majority of my time on obtaining an education which included earning a master’s degree and becoming a full-time music teacher. This was necessary to support my family, as I needed a stable income. So life changed, however, my passion for and practice of music has been consistent and now that my life has settled some, I intend to focus more on recording and producing music. My love of music includes r&b, jazz, rock, dance, classical and blues. I am always playing, writing, producing, and learning new things. I love house and dance music, but I also spent a lot of time on the other genres of music that I am interested in.

How would you describe Chicago in the 80s and 90s? How did that influence you musically?During the 80s, rap and house music were both growing in popularity. There seemed to be more of a house scene in Chicago during the 80s, rap caught up in the 90s. I was sort of a low-key house head so that was my thing. I spent a great deal of time working in promotions: going to clubs and interacting with different people influenced my music.

Which Chicago musicians are your heroes?When it comes to people from Chicago, I would have to say Mr. Fingers, Jamie Principle, Mike Dunn, Terry Hunter, Bobby Broom and Common are the artists I admire.

Who has been the artist in Chicago that you felt you could relate to most?I grew up with Armando, he lived across the street when I was a child, and we were together a lot until he passed in 1996 from leukemia. I learned most things about house music, house music artists, and event promotion from Armando. I was inspired musically by Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers). I played keyboard with Larry on some of his tour dates when he was signed to MCA; his recordings are classic.

How did you get in touch with Chan, the vocalist on ‘Your Eyes’?Chan (Dwayne Chandler), like Armando, is a childhood friend who lived next door to me growing up. I wrote the music and lyrics, Chan did the vocals. He is an awesome singer.

Can you name a few records that influenced you back in the days?I have a fairly large record collection of thousands of records. The artists who influenced my house music were Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Mr. Fingers, Pet Shop Boys and disco music in general. My biggest musical influence is Prince, I am a big fan of his music and have seen him live over a dozen times.

Have you been active in Chicago’s dance music club culture? Did you go clubbing to the famous places where the history of this music gets referred to so often?When I was younger I went to the Music Box and the Warehouse, as well as promoting parties at many different venues. I am not really much of a party-goer. I’ll treat a dance music venue the same as I do going to a jazz club: I go for the music.

Text: Antal
Editing: Max Cole

-

‘Moonlight Fantasy’ features a selection of Vincent Floyd’s previously unreleased classics, mastered from the original DAT tapes. All tracks are soaked in warm leads, dreamy drums and gripping melodies.

The ‘Moonlight Fantasy’ digi release features four bonus tracks, that were not included in the vinyl EP.

Rick Wilhite delivers the second Vibes New & Rare Music compilation on Rush Hour. As a DJ and promoter Wilhite has been holding it down for over twenty years and his Vibes New & Rare record store has been a main source in Detroit for soulful electronic music. Despite of the fact that the store closed, The Godfather keeps delivering quality music through his own music, compilations and DJ sets.

The Vibes New & Rare music compilation, in particular, is a compilation that only features music that Rick Wilhite thinks is really speaking for the artists. After releasing Vibes 1 in 2010, Wilhite offers the sequel. Vibes 2 includes pioneers and new talents from New York, Chicago and Detroit. We asked Wilhite about his selection, about Vibes and the Detroit music scene.

How did this compilation arise?The compilation itself represents Vibes and the people that represented the store. People like label artists who bought records. The cuts I have selected for the compilation are not available anywhere else. Some of the cuts were given to me personally, for me to keep. Or to give it a head nod. Like, yes this could go out. I got some of the other cuts from personal friends, to represent the vibe. Each cut on the compilation has the representation of who the artist is and what he really likes to put out.

Moodymann, Jovonn, K-Alexi just to name a few… Vibes – New & Rare music features a lot of classic artists, but also new, upcoming names. Can you introduce us to a new talent whose track you have selected?Yes, I like to tell something about Jon Easly from Detroit. He wrote Lemon Lime and gave it to me a while ago. Easley is an artist that wanted to put out music for a long time, he has been a DJ for decades. I’ve put out one of his tracks on an earlier compilation, but this particular track I specifically wanted to be on Vibes, because I feel that this really represents him and the style of music he wants to do. The same for the K-Alexi track, called Head Banger. I’ve had it for a while… I didn’t want to put it on other compilations. You see… the Vibes compilation is something different. The music fits the artist, that’s most important. This K-Alexi is more of his deeper inner soul compared to the stuff that he has put out lately. True K-Alexi style… Vintage style I would say haha.

You have been around for a long time. If you compare today’s music scene in Detroit to the scene when you started, what has mostly changed?We always involve in different things… But in the end we just do what we do. There are different types of things we get into. There are a lot of big birthday parties around here that we are used to play at. Well, talking about parties, the techno side of it might dwindle a little bit, but on the house end and any other type of music, it’s going strong. Every week, in the middle of the week as well, there are private parties given. That is what Detroit is about. There is always somebody giving something you wanna go to. Every week.

Detroit. The city that represents artists that have been doing their thing consistently from the very beginning, and are still going strong after so many years. How is that possible?Yeah, most of our artists and labels have maintained the same groove. Talking about labels like Sound Signature, Mahogany, Unirhythm, Moods & Grooves, for instance, keep going. And Transmat, they are putting out new stuff again. I saw the Karim Sahraoui release, that is a really nice release for Transmat, to respark what they were known for. A good release that I believe will make a lot of noise. Just the fact that we try to promote the music as well here in the city, more so than relying on magazines or different websites in order to promote or market, we try to give free parties or release parties. It’s like, having your people come together for the music in your city is different than doing it in other cities. We just take our cars and drive down the street, you know… hahaha.

Rick Wilhite at his Vibes record store

Could you tell us a bit more about Vibes? For instance, could you give an example of how you and your store contributed to the music scene in Detroit?I think I’ve been a reliable source to unknown music. Any type of electronic music. Hip-hop as well. It is unknown and the main key to promoting new music is that you need to have the right curator. It is impossible to have everything at your record store. So the selection tells what you represent. There is so much to discover, but a lot pleople just like to be advised. The more knowledge you have of the music in your store, the more business you get from people who trust you. I think it was just a place where people could meet. I had four different stores, I started out big and became smaller, I cut down on a lot of genres. I could have had a big store, but it is hard. So I decided to limit it to very rare stuff, little copies, but absolute must haves.

Since Vibes closed its doors, you continued to select music, now for your compilations… Have you thought of opening another record shop in the near future?Ahh, I think about it every day… Because of legal issues I had to close, it wasn’t my choice. The building was closing. If I restart again I woundn’t do it alone anymore… So there is always a possibility it might happen again.

We already know that Antal met Vincent Floyd in Chicago last March. Since he is a longtime fan of Floyd’s work, he asked for unreleased music. It turned out that Floyd had enough material, and he selected some of the finest to compile an EP.

Of course Antal wanted to find out more about the man behind the music, so he asked him some questions. This is just a tease, the complete interview will be published in our next House Of Music magazine.

How would you describe Chicago in the 80ties and 90ties? And how did that influence you musically?During the 80’s, rap and house music were both growing in popularity. There seemed to be more of a house scene in Chicago during the 80’s, rap caught up in the 90’s. I was sort of a low key house head so that was my thing. I spent a great deal of time working in promotions; going to clubs and interacting with different people influenced my music.

Who are the artists in Chicago that you felt closely related to?I grew up with Armando Gallop, he lived across the street when I was a child, and we were together a lot until he passed in 1996 from leukemia. He was a DJ, I learned most things about house music, house music artists, and event promotion from him. I was inspired musically by Larry Heard aka Mr. Fingers. I played keyboard with Larry on some of his tour dates when he was signed to MCA; his recordings are classic. And Chan, who did the vocals for ‘Your Eyes’, is Dwayne Chandler. like Armando, is a childhood friend who lived next door to me when we grew up. He is an awesome singer.

How did your first house productions come about?Armando was a house producer as well. When we were in high school, he bought a Roland TB-303 groove machine and a TR-707 drum machine. We programmed a lot of tracks in his basement. I later purchased Roland and Yamaha drum machines and keyboards and started to recording songs. I had been recording R&B songs as well as dance music. Armando had released “Land of Confusion” and introduced me to Ray Barney at Dance Mania.